Egan & Wyche “On a Role” (from TOWN)

This interview was originally printed in the March 2017 edition of TOWN and printed online on February 28, 2017.

When actors Mimi Wyche and Chip Egan take the stage on March 24 at the Warehouse Theatre as the lead roles in Arthur Miller’s dramatic 1947 play All My Sons, it will only be the second time the two have performed together since Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? roared through the space on Augusta Street six years ago. Miller—who we hope is known more for his work and less for being married to Marilyn Monroe—created “a masterpiece of American drama,” says Egan of the play. No pressure there, right?

Egan, a freelance director, actor, designer, and retired dean emeritus of the College of Architecture, Arts, and Humanities at Clemson University, and Wyche, the Greenville native erstwhile New Yorker, sat down to banter a few weeks out from beginning rehearsals:

So, Mimi, you were in a Broadway play when you lived in New York City, correct?

Mimi Wyche: Yes, it was Cats (pausing for a beat, then smiling)—back when it mattered (laughter).

What does acting fuel for you, Chip?

Chip Egan: It’s sort of who I am. I am a theater artist and that takes lots of forms—actor, director, sometimes designer—and that’s the way I’ve been since I was a teenager, and it’s a kind of lifeblood. I’m not very good at not doing it after awhile.

MW: I feel like it’s food for my soul. In New York there’s a thing that if you can’t get hired, make your own jobs, so that’s why I started writing these one-woman shows because it would give me something to work on while I was trying to get a “job-job.”